Correlation of litter size traits

Heredity and correlation of litter size traits were observed in 3693 litters, i.e. in 1622 daughters of two genotypes Swedish Landrace genotype SL; and F1 ♀ SLxLW. The study included daughters (minimum ten daughters per sire) of 24 sires. Heritability estimates for the total number of piglets per litter in the first, the first two parities, and for all three parities was 0.174; 0.167 and 0.135. Heritability estimates for the number of piglets born alive were 0.181; 0.160 and 0.121, and for the weight of litter at birth 0.166; 0.174 and 0.150. On the other hand, very low heritability was determined for the number of weaned piglets, litter weight of piglets reared, individual weight of born and reared piglets, i.e. for the traits that are under greater influence of the environment (from 0.004 to 0.037). Phenotypic and genetic correlations ranged from weak to complete (rp = 0.021 to rp = 0.973 and rg=0.188 to rg=0.999, respectively). Analysis of the significance of correlations showed that the genetic correlations were statistically highly significant (P <0.01).